There Where It's So Bright in Me

by Tanella Boni, Chris Abani (Foreword), Todd Fredson (Translator)

There Where It’s So Bright in Me pries at the complexities of difference—race, religion, gender, nationality—that shape twenty-first-century geopolitical conditions. With work spanning more than thirty-five years and as one of the most prominent figures in contemporary African literature, Tanella Boni is uniquely positioned to test the distinctions of self, other, and belonging. Two twenty-first-century civil wars have made her West African home country of Côte d’Ivoire unstable. Abroad in the United States, Boni confronts the racialized violence that accompanies the idea of Blackness; in France, a second home since her university days, Boni encounters the nationalism roiling much of Europe as the consequences of (neo)colonialism shift the continent’s ethnic and racial profile.

What would it mean for the borders that segregate—for these social, political, cultural, personal, and historicizing forces that enshroud us—to lose their dominion? In a body under constant threat, how does the human spirit stay afloat? Boni’s poetry is characterized by a hard-earned buoyancy, given her subject matter. Her empathy, insight, and plainspoken address are crucial contributions to the many difficult contemporary conversations we must engage.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2022

Reviews

[ancientreader · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Nigerian American writer Chris Abani says in the introduction to this book that "[Boni's] language is not delicate or precious, not heightened or overtly elegant. These poems are precise, capaciously imagined, and presented in a plain language."

I don't know what it means to call writing capaciously imagined; the phrase seems to me like an astrological prediction in that it sounds good but could apply to just about any poetry the speaker liked. As for the rest of that passage, I snagged on the word "precise," because -- to my ear -- "precise" is just what most of the language in "There Where It's So Bright in Me" isn't. Many of the poems lean hard on abstraction; many lines sound, to my ear, like inspirational posters. "To share the joy and pain / Of those whose voices go unheard," one stanza reads.

But some lines are incandescent -- meaning they turn on a light in your brain. "Joy spills and spills / Across the threshold of words to come." "Life is a kingdom made beautiful by accident."

Boni is Ivoirian by origin, but lives part-time in Paris as well. That is to say, she writes in French. Additionally, her preoccupations as a writer are to do with experiences far removed from mine: although my parents were migrants (refugees, in their case), I was born in the US and have lived here all my life, besides which I'm white. Oppression Olympics is stupid and just pits people against each other (I'm queer! I'm somewhat disabled! I'm just as oppressed as you are NYAH NYAH and meanwhile the Rethuglicans rush into Drag Queen Story Hour with AR-15s at the ready), but it's certainly the case that the experience Boni writes out of is very, very different from mine, and so her poetry may well speak to many people in a way it doesn't to me.

I did consult my conscience about whether I'm just balking at being faced with that difference in our experience, and I think probably not, if I can go by my taste in poetry in general. I have noticed in the past that poetry written in French, a language I used to be fluent in, often flattens out when translated into English, whereas Italian or German or Japanese poetry less often has that problem when Englished, at least if the translation is a good one. But in general, poets whose work translates well aren't thick on the ground.

I would have preferred not to give this book a star rating, since although I read it with interest I may well not be the best person to evaluate it, but unfortunately I'm obliged to do so. I'll call it 3 stars and leave it at that.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

[Sara Sams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous book of poems, unique in their ability to take a view of the self as terrain, or moving through terrain. Boni is a philosopher as well as a poet and this book of seven long poems asks us to think about how language is the best tool we have to approximate who we are— who the speaker is, returning to a country she once had to flee— in relation to time, and the places and people we love. Fredson’s translation is thoughtful and stirring; he has lived in these poems and brought his skill as a poet to do his best to render Boni’s complex imagery in simple but profound language. The simple syntax may fool you at first; line breaks and stanza breaks put pressure on the language, so that a handful of interpretations arise and you are pressured to spend time parsing them out. A moving, challenging, and rewarding reading experience. I hope you buy, read, and talk about this book.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poems in these poems of witness are not so much descriptive or narrative as they are observed--lines that are like each breath, the narrator positioning themself as one who is reporting back what they see in their landscape.


A house is a little world / A State an entire world / And the world could have been / An uppercase world / If the hearts were not / Reservoirs of so much suffering

Unknown. There Where Its So Bright in Me (Kindle Locations 178-179). Kindle Edition.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me an advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the world of small things
A good fire costs nothing
It burns it heats
Love is worth every gold piece on this planet

Spark a light in the corner of your eye
And cross the humanless void of desert
As if life were flourishing
At every door and window

Forgo the rules
Of this impersonal world
Whose violence is crushing
Your frail presence
Don't wait for the flame
To go out in you."

[Maria do Socorro Baptista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poemas que lidam com situações complexas — raça, religião, gênero, nacionalidade — que moldam as condições geopolíticas do século XXI. Profundos, inquietantes, levam-nos a refletir sobre nós mesmos e sobre nossas relaçÕes com o outro. Excelente livro.